This isn’t perhaps the weirdest WTF of all time, but it literally made me say WTF, and so…

The other day I was walking through Boscov’s, a chain of department stores in five states along the US Eastern seaboard (of which Pennsylvania is an honorary member, so take that, doubters!). It’s a decent store that offers low-to-midrange price points on just about everything from shoes to clothes to toys to housewares to La-Z-Boys. They have a charmingly cheesetastic “As Seen On TV!” section. Normally it’s not a…well, it’s not a great place to shop (though I know my mother would disagree with me on this) but it’s not weird, like, oh, clearly this store was laid out by Cthulhu to terrify humanity into obedience. It’s not confusing. It is what it is.

So imagine me, the other day, walking into Boscov’s to kill a little time before the movie I was seeing at the mall megamultibajillionplex started. I am a woman and absolutely fall into the consumer trappings of womanhood and so I made haste to the shoe department. Smack in the middle of the aisle, at the confluence of shoes and handbags and clothing and purses and swimsuits, I saw…this…

Wait, what?

And you know…

First of all, I’m pretty sure that’s a fire hazard.

Second, they HAVE a food department, so why the potato chips have migrated to the exact opposite end of the store is a mystery.

Third, there’s something inherently weird about sticking a huge potato chip display near the swimsuits. Want that beach body, boys and girls? Well…have some chips instead! Once you feel guilty and panicked that you won’t be able to fit into your bathing suit this year, we’ll be happy to direct you to our exercise equipment. May we interest you in a Shake Weight? It’s been seen on TV.

Fourth, this reinforces my belief that potato chips, as much as I love their salty greasy goodness, aren’t really food at all.

So I propose: FLASH MOB! Susquehanna Valley Mall, some time soon. And we all just descend en masse upon Boscov’s and buy all the chips and walk around the store eating them, touching things with our greasy, crumby fingers. It would be madness.

A friend suggested that said flash mob “…should buy chips, high heels, and bathing suits. Then put on the heels and swimsuits, stuff the bag of chips in the suit, and have a very crunchy and weird mosh pit.”

We could do that too. The possibilities are wide open.

So, seriously, Boscov’s, WTF?

Today’s non-sequitur suggested WordPress tag is: Bethesda Terrace. Bethesda Terrace is a structure/walkway that overlooks the lake New York City’s Central Park, and has nothing to do with anything I’ve talked about today. Thanks, WordPress!

In a shocking development for me, I’m at a little bit of a loss for words on this one. I’m not sure what I like best about this… I love that the dolls are carefully put together in descending order, best for it to take on the appearance of some fearsome segmented creature with many stomachs to satisfy.

I love that the head doll has weird, platinum-white hair à la the murderous, telepathic space-children from Village of the Damned.

Image from deathensemble.com

And I love that the baby face just looks so goddamned hungry.

The “WTF WordPress, really?” suggested tag for this post is “Antiques and Collectibles“. While I can sort of logically determine why this would qualify as a legitimate suggestion, anyone who collects segmented doll carcass-pedes with a hankering for blood…well, that impulse really shouldn’t be legitimized.

~XOT

Photo found at Cthulhu Hand Luke‘s Facebook page, which is a bizarre, often hilarious, freak show full of awesome and I totally recommend that you check it out.

Despite the fact that World War II and the Nazi menace happened seventy years ago, it’s a (hopefully) wildly aberrant phenomenon that still–rightly so–has people reeling as they grapple to understand the complexities of organized evil. Since the end of WWII, filmmakers the world over have made movies addressing the question of Nazi occupation in an effort to understand, at least in hindsight, the menace that overwhelmed Europe in the 1930s and ’40s. They’re still making them, with recent memory bringing us movies like Schindler’s Listand The Pianist and Life is Beautifuland Downfall. Movies like these–and hundreds more–explore the horror that was the Nazi regime, so we may hopefully never forget the depths to which mankind may fall.

As was all too common in Europe, Norway’s capitulation to Nazi occupation and their treatment of Norwegian Jews was met with precious little resistance. So it seems that sometimes, in the middle of contemplating your country’s complicity in the abomination that was Nazi rule, you’ve gotta shake things up by putting the Nazis in modern-day Norway. And once you do that you might want to imagine that those modern-day Nazis in Norway are “survivors” (if you can call them that) of a battalion that was run out of a village towards the end of the war and sent into the mountains to die. And they did die, but not really. Because somehow, up in Norway’s remote mountain caves, those surviving Nazis became bloodthirsty zombies.

This movie is…well, it’s special, isn’t it? It’s certainly something that makes a viewer want to scratch his or her head and ask, WTF? Really?

Considering the main cast is relatively small, there’s an extraordinary amount of gore in Dead Snow. If you’re afraid of having to follow subtitles, I’m here to tell you to A) get over it, B) it’s a pretty straightforward gore-horror movie, so you really won’t miss any dramatic plot twists if you can’t keep up with reading the translations and C) there are long stretches of movie that are all bloody mayhem and no dialogue. Which is kind of interesting to watch, since US-made horror films can’t seem to bear the thought of no dialogue, even if it doesn’t make sense. If I were fighting off a zombie, I doubt my focus would be on giving sass, too. Plus, it’s got one of the most glorious (and I would daresay gleeful) chainsaw fights in all of filmdom. Which, all things considered, then begs the question: Great Norwegian Nazi zombie movie, or greatest Norwegian Nazi zombie movie?

And yes, it’s real and available for home viewing. Check your Netflix. If only I could make this up.

WordPress hasn’t given me any non-sequitur tags because this entry is weird enough as it is. But! I’ll include a bonus link to the Jake and Dinos Chapman art installment, “The Sum of All Evil“. A mass of diorama and reworked paintings, the Chapman Brothers hang Nazis and crucify multiple Ronald McDonalds while making critical social commentary.

Pretty WTF-y for sure, and IIIIIIIIIIIII LIKE IT! Several suggestions were made to include this display in the MoWTF, including a suggestion from friend of the museum Michael C. Keep ’em coming, people!

“The Sum of All Evil” was on display in Kiev until just recently and is currently en route to Hong Kong, where it can be seen until the end of August.

And I would like the wings to come from a feathery mutant-headed dino-bird, just like this one.

Picture submitted by Friend of the Museum Heather W. and found on the FB page for Valley Vet Supply. Thanks, Heather! Keep those WTFeries coming in!

Today’s WTF-causing suggested tag from WordPress is…Art! As in, a piece of, not Art Carney, though he’s cool too (and now, ironically, also tagged). While I know the photoshoppified picture of Roostersaurus is a thing of beauty, I still would have a hard time classifying it as “art”. But hey, to each their own.

That monster wasn’t much to look at, and it certainly wasn’t scary. It was little more than a few pieces of purple material stitched together, with mismatched buttons for eyes and little fuzzy arms made to hug.

And little Timmy loved it.

And that monster had a secret.

It was a magical monster doll!

The conditions had to be just right for the doll’s magic to become known. It had to be on the first day of spring or autumn, when the 24-hour span of the day is divided equally between daylight and the night. And it had to be a dark moon, a night where the moon’s face is hidden and the sun’s light casts no hint of warmth on the world. Then the veil between the worlds is thinnest. Then the secret doors can open.

On just such a night, Timmy was fast asleep, his beloved stuffed monster curled up next to him. As midnight approached the air in the room seemed to grow thick. Timmy moaned slightly in his sleep, but did not awaken. The time wasn’t right. Not yet.

Midnight.

When the clock turned to midnight, Timmy’s eyes fluttered open. His favorite toy was sitting on his chest instead of curled up into his arm. And it…was…growing. Not the body of the doll, that stayed the same size. But a line appeared where no mouth had been before, and it grew, and then it opened. Timmy, still groggy from sleep, wondered why he never ever noticed his monster had a fully developed set of teeth before. The monster’s head kept growing, and the mouth kept stretching, wider, wider, as his favorite toy leaned closer to him. He heard a voice emanate from deep within the doll, at once whispering and filling the room. It said, “In his house at R’lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.” Timmy screamed once before the monster’s cavernous mouth descended upon him and enveloped him in blackness.

By the time his parents ran to the room, Timmy was gone beyond the stars to the lost city of R’lyeh, to tend to the dead and sleeping Old Ones until they awaken and return to enslave the earth once more. His monster, his doll, his friend, sat benign and inert, upended on his pillow. Timmy’s mother picked it up forlornly and set it rightside up before leaving the room to call the police.

If it still had its mouth it would have smiled.

There were two more nights of the dark moon, and two more parents.

Making family reunions fun since before time began.

Sleep tight, children!

Today’s completely jacked suggested tag from WordPress? Tim Horton’s. That’s right, Tim Horton’s, the completely benign, welcoming, Canadian chain of doughnut shops. Perhaps they’re trying to lull us into a false sense of security with coffee and confections before tearing apart the barriers between the worlds? What are you up to, Tim Horton? Besides, of course, providing delicious cakey goodness and caffeine to the masses?

Photo provided to MoWTF by friend of the museum Michael C., though I have no idea where in the hell he got it from.